All flights cancelled on Gulf-Kolkata sector

Kolkata: A day after a FlyDubai flight landed in Kolkata, all flights between Kolkata and the war-affected Gulf region were cancelled on Friday.The operation of the FlyDubai flight on Thursday fuelled hope of normalisation of flight operations between Kolkata and the region where several people from the city are currently stranded. However, overnight strikes by Iran on Abu Dhabi and Dubai dashed the possibility, with airlines opting to cancel all flights to prioritise safety.
FlyDubai, which announced plans to operate the flight between Dubai and Kolkata on Saturday, is yet to take a final call."Scores of people from Kolkata are held up in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Doha. There are others in European cities. The situation is particularly difficult for passengers headed to Kolkata. Multiple flights are operating from the Gulf to Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru daily. However, Kolkata has only one flight so far," a travel agent said.Airport officials said all four Gulf carriers scheduled to operate flights to Kolkata on Friday — Emirates, Etihad, Qatar and Air Arabia — announced the cancellation of flights. These included two return flights to Abu Dhabi, one to Dubai and another to Doha.An airline official said consistency and predictability of service, which were key propositions that airlines in the Gulf offered to flyers, went completely haywire due to the current crisis.Flyers scheduled to travel to Europe via the Gulf cancelled tickets and booked on European carriers, like British Airways, Lufthansa and KLM, that fly direct, avoiding the Gulf route. However, a drone strike on Azerbaijan in the early hours of Friday left even these carriers jittery. Those travelling to the US are now opting for Singapore Airlines, Thai Airlines and Malaysia Airlines flights via Southeast Asia.Travel agents said the surge in air fares did not help matters. Though flights from the Gulf are not operating at present, tickets are being sold at prices that are six-seven times the usual. Travel industry representatives said the spike was triggered by the ongoing regional conflict, airspace restrictions, and large-scale flight cancellations, which severely reduced seat availability on several international routes.